Autonomic Adaption to Clinical Simulation in Psychology Students: Teaching Applications

Simulation is used to facilitate new learning in a variety of situations. One application of simulation could be to help therapists gain therapeutic skills prior to seeing clients. This particular study was interested in measuring changes in stress response by looking at subjective and objective measures of distress (as measured by SUDS, HR, and HRV) over three sessions of simulated therapy. 16 second year psychology students participated in three sessions, and had their HR and HRV measured by Polar watches. Over the three sessions, there was a decrease in perceived distress, as measured by SUDS ratings. During and between sessions, there was inconclusive change in physiological parameters.     

Data quality aware analysis of differential expression in RNA-seq with NOISeq R/Bioc package

As the use of RNA-seq has popularized, there is an increasing consciousness of the importance of experimental design, bias removal, accurate quantification and control of false positives for proper data analysis. We introduce the NOISeq R-package for quality control and analysis of count data. We show how the available diagnostic tools can be used to monitor quality issues, make pre-processing decisions and improve analysis. We demonstrate that the non-parametric NOISeqBIO efficiently controls false discoveries in experiments with biological replication and outperforms state-of-the-art methods. NOISeq is a comprehensive resource that meets current needs for robust data-aware analysis of RNA-seq differential expression.     

Vacuolar apical compartment (VAC) in breast carcinoma cell lines (MCF-7 and T47D): failure of the cell-cell regulated exocytosis mechanism of apical membrane

Abstract. We have previously shown that an integral plasma membrane glycoprotein (AP2) is highly polarized to the apical domain in confluent Madin-Darby canine kidney (MDCK) epithelial cells. However, when the monolayers are prevented from forming intercellular contacts, approximately 60% of the AP2 cellular content is stored in the intracellular vacuolar apical compartment (VAC). In the current work we found that AP2 was present in the non-tumorigenic human mammary epithelial cell line MCF-10A. in the breast carcinoma cell lines MCF-7 and T47D, and in breast ductal carcinomas in vivo. By radioimmunoassay, an intracellular Compartment of AP2 was identified in the mammary cell lines in culture. In MCF-10A, this compartment behaved as in MDCK cells; namely it was observed only when the cells cannot form cell-cell contacts. However, in the carcinoma cell lines MCF-7 and T47D, a significant AP2 intracellular compartment was observed also under conditions permissive for the formation of intercellular contacts. These results were confirmed by immunofluorescence and immunoelectron microscopy experiments that showed VACs in MCF-7 and T47D, even in cells with extensive intercellular contacts. In MCF-7 cells, the addition of serum caused a partial decrease of the AP2 intracellular compartment. The exocytosis of VACs occurred towards the center of multi-cellular groups, forming intercellular lumens, similar to those transiently observed in MDCK cells and to structures described by others during embryo development. Altogether, these results suggest that VAC exocytosis is controlled by cell-cell contact signalling, which may be defective in carcinoma cells.     

A complex species complex: The controversial role of ecology and biogeography in the evolutionary history of Syllis gracilis Grube, 1840 (Annelida,Syllidae)

The cryptic diversity in the polychaete Syllis gracilis Grube, 1840, in the Mediterranean Sea was examined with an integrative morpho-molecular approach. Individuals of S. gracilis were collected at eleven Mediterranean localities to provide an insight into the role of brackish environments in inducing cryptic speciation. The examination of morphological features combined with a molecular genetic analysis based on a partial sequence of the 16S rRNA gene highlighted discrepancies between morphological and molecular diversity. Morphological data allowed to identify a morphotype with short appendages occurring in coralline algae communities and another one with long appendages observed in brackish-water environments and Sabellaria reefs. Multivariate analyses showed that sampling localities were the greatest source of morphological divergence, suggesting that phenotypic plasticity may play a role in local adaptations of S. gracilis populations. Molecular data showed the occurrence of four divergent lineages not corresponding to morphological clusters. Different species delimitation tests gave conflicting results, retrieving, however, at least four separated entities. Some lineages occurred in sympatry and were equally distributed in marine and brackish-water environments, excluding a biogeographic or ecological explanation of the observed pattern and suggesting instead ancient separation between lineages and secondary contact. The co-occurrence of different lineages hindered the identification of the lineage corresponding to S. gracilis sensu stricto. The discrepancy between morphological and molecular diversity suggests that different environmental and biogeographic features may interact in a complex and unpredictable way in shaping diversity patterns. An integrative approach is needed to provide a satisfactory insight on evolutionary processes in marine invertebrates.     

Production of vitamin B12 in an upflow anaerobic filter continuous reactor using Acetobacterium sp.

The accumulation of biofilm by Acetobacterium sp. during continuous culture in an upflow anaerobic filter (UAF) growing on methanol-formate was the result of space velocity and inlet concentrations of substrate and Co⁺². To achieve good development of biofilm, a space velocity of 0.38 h^–1, inlet substrate concentrations of 125 mM of both methanol and formate, and Co⁺² at 0.16 mM were required. Cell productivities in the effluent of the UAF-reactor were about 6-fold higher than in chemostat cultures (0.20 g l^–1 h^–1 for UAF and 0.035 g l^–1 h^–1 for chemostat) (previous studies), and the maximum vitamin B₁₂ specific concentration was 5.1 mg g cell^–1.     

The roles of WRN and BLM RecQ helicases in the Alternative Lengthening of Telomeres

Approximately 10% of all cancers, but a higher proportion of sarcomas, use the recombination-based alternative lengthening of telomeres (ALT) to maintain telomeres. Two RecQ helicase genes, BLM and WRN, play important roles in homologous recombination repair and they have been implicated in telomeric recombination activity, but their precise roles in ALT are unclear. Using analysis of sequence variation present in human telomeres, we found that a WRN– ALT+ cell line lacks the class of complex telomere mutations attributed to inter-telomeric recombination in other ALT+ cell lines. This suggests that WRN facilitates inter-telomeric recombination when there are sequence differences between the donor and recipient molecules or that sister-telomere interactions are suppressed in the presence of WRN and this promotes inter-telomeric recombination. Depleting BLM in the WRN– ALT+ cell line increased the mutation frequency at telomeres and at the MS32 minisatellite, which is a marker of ALT. The absence of complex telomere mutations persisted in BLM-depleted clones, and there was a clear increase in sequence homogenization across the telomere and MS32 repeat arrays. These data indicate that BLM suppresses unequal sister chromatid interactions that result in excessive homogenization at MS32 and at telomeres in ALT+ cells.     

In vivo bromodeoxyuridine incorporation in human gastric cancer: A study on formalin-fixed and paraffin-embedded sections

Summary Bromodeoxyuridine (BUDR) is a non-radioactive thymidine analogue which is incorporated into the DNA of proliferating cells. This allows evaluation of the size of the S-phase as the BUDR labelling index (BUDR-LI) not onlyin vitro but alsoin vivo, since BUDR is not toxic at the doses needed to label cells. To ascertain whetherin vivo BUDR incorporation can be detected on routine histological material we tested several different procedures prior to immunoperoxidase staining, on formalin-fixed, paraffin-embedded sections from five patients with gastric cancer, who received BUDR (250 mg m^–2, intravenous) 4 h before surgery. To determine the optimal conditions for detecting BUDR in formalin-fixed tissues, immunohistochemical testing for BUDR was performed simultaneously on duplicate sections fixed with 70% ethanol. It was found that hydrolysis with 3N HCl at 37° C for 30 min and digestion with 0.5% in at 37° C for 30 min were sufficient to detect BUDR immunoreactivity in formalin-fixed sections.The method presented extends the range of applications of thein vivo BUDR technique for cell kinetics studies in human neoplasms because it can be used on routinely fixed archival material, with the advantage of correlating the kinetic data with histopathological characters.